1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image management sever, an image printing server and an image service system for use in a digital image service system provided over a communication network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Until the popularization of digital cameras, the conventional way of making prints employed a photosensitive film containing silver salts, such as silver halide film. Prints made utilizing silver halide photographic film have been used in many ways, such as being shown to friends to communicate the state of affairs when the picture was taken, being sent to acquaintances, being enlarged for use in decorating, being gathered in a photo album, etc. However, if prints made using silver halide photographic film are not maintained in an orderly fashion they can pile up quickly, and for cases in which a film negative or a print becomes lost, it becomes very difficult to recover the image. Further, even if painstaking measures are taken to properly organize prints and negatives, it is very time consuming to separate them into themes and categories. Still further, there are cases in which a user forgets to replace in its original place of storage a portion of negative film that has been taken out, whereby it becomes difficult to maintain the orderly arrangement thereof.
These circumstances and advances in technology have given rise to the practice of storing photographs as digital data using image data that has been obtained by scanning an image recorded on a negative film or obtained by photographing with a digital camera. However, it is often the case that digital image data such as that described above is stored on the hard disk of the personal computer of the user, and transferring the image data when a new computer is purchased is troublesome. Further, there are also cases in which the image data is stored on a storage medium such as a CD-R, producing a risk that image data will be lost if stored thereon for a long period of time due to deterioration of the condition of the storage medium. Still further, there are cases in which an apparatus for reproducing data stored on a certain type of media falls out of production due to its having become obsolescent upon being superceded by a newer technology, and therefore becomes unavailable. In this case, it becomes impossible to reproduce the data.
Therefore, image storage systems, wherein image data is transmitted over a network such as the internet to an image storing server for providing an image data storage service, have been proposed.
According to these image storage systems, image data transmitted directly from the user or from a printing laboratory at the request of the user and obtained by the image storing server is stored therein. It thereby becomes possible for the user to access the aforementioned image storage server by use of a terminal such as a personal computer to peruse the stored image data, and so on. Among such systems is an image data management system, as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/242,770, which is capable of efficiently managing image data, and also of carrying out print commands for making prints, etc. By use of this system, once image data has been stored in the image data management server, a user can peruse the image data, perform various processes such as organizing the image data, etc. Further, the user can also set printing conditions (e.g. the printing laboratory that is to perform the printing, the print size, type of printing paper, number of prints, and so on), whereby a print order for desired image data can be carried out. The image managing server causes the specified printing laboratory to print out the images in accordance with the printing conditions set by the user, whereby the user can obtain prints corresponding to the desired specifications.
Meanwhile, the functions of portable phones are rapidly increasing, along with the recent prevalence thereof. Among these portable phones are models equipped with cameras. It has become commonplace for users to photograph, that is, obtain image data, wherever they may be, as long as they have their portable phones. However, as the sizes of the portable phones are limited, the memory capacity for storing image data therein is also limited. In order to store the large amount of image data obtained during a trip, for example, it is necessary to utilize a storage system such as that described above.
However, with regard to the image storage system as described above, in the case that a user is to utilize the data management service, user registration is necessary. The user registration of these systems involve the name, address, and phone number of the user in addition to the user name and password, and is troublesome to complete.
In addition, with regard to the image storage system as described above, it is often the case that there is only once storage server, which acts as the storage apparatus. Oftentimes, users who employ portable phones with built-in cameras upload all of the image data obtained by photography while on a trip. However, not all of the image data necessarily requires permanent storage. Due to the capacity of the server, there is usually an upper limit to the memory capacity assigned to each user. Unless the user organizes uploaded image data immediately, new image data may not be uploaded. Alternatively, the user may have to pay a fee to store image data that need not be permanently stored.
Further, in the case that a portable phone is used for photography, the image data obtained thereby is generally uploaded to a storage server operated by the vendor of the portable phone and stored therein. It is simple for the portable phone vendor to construct a database simply for storing image data. However, it is difficult for such a vendor to construct a storage server that provides other editing and organizing functions, or service functions such as offering promotions to users, as proposed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/242,770 described above. Although the portable phone vendors are willing to provide the service of storing the image data of their users, there is a desire to delegate the other services to another vendor.
However, it is very inconvenient for the user to utilize a service on image data that he has already uploaded. This would involve accessing the server that provides the desired service, then uploading the image data again, to this server.
The image storage system as proposed in aforementioned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/242,770 provides the conveniences of allowing users to organize image data and ordering prints. However, the storage server becomes extremely large, and of a complex structure. The properties of image management services for storing and organizing image data and image printing systems for performing printing related processes (e.g., reception of printing conditions, the processing for causing a printing apparatus to print out the prints, etc.) are disparate in their nature, and the respective apparatuses (e.g., a server for performing image management processes and the like and a server for performing printing related processes) for carrying out the respective process are of different configurations. Further, in order to configure these apparatuses of different configurations, different know-how is required for each of the respective apparatuses, whereby it becomes difficult for a single vendor to configure a complete system providing both the image data management and image printing systems. Therefore, a demand has developed for image data management servers for storing image data to be configured by a vendor having expertise in databases and image printing servers for performing printing related processes to be configured by another vendor, who has expertise in printing systems.
However, if an image management service that is divided into an image data management server for storing and organizing image data and an image printing server for performing printing related processes, wherein a vendor proficient in storage technology operates the image data management server and another vendor proficient in printing technology operates the image printing server is provided, because the user has to access both the image storing server and the image printing server to send from the image data managing server to the image printing server the image data desired to be printed when image data stored in the image data management server is to be printed out by the image printing server, and to issue the command to print at the image printing server, the burden on the user is troublesome.